2.23.2010

Our Littlest Customer

We really should look into what is required to claim a record with the Guinness people. I'm sure that our newest customer would qualify. Mira Margaret is pictured here in her mom's arms, complete with knitted Wagnerian headguear just hours after her birth at 1:46pm last Thursday. Little Mira dropped in at the WOOL-TYME Kingston Knit and Chat later that same evening for a visit on her way home from the hospital when she was just 5 hours old.
My guess is that with her costume, she might even show up to watch the Olympics with us at Jakk's tonight. Who knows?

2.18.2010

DAY 7 Knitting Olympics


Last Saturday I was lucky enough to take a wonderful workshop on digital photography aimed specifically at artists and crafters who are needing to take accurate yet appealing pictures of their projects and designs. The picture at left is actually very accurate for colour, and despite the sombre tones and mixture of 2 multi hued yarns, it still shows up the cable designs relatively well. And I was able to achieve this effect in about 3 minutes of picture taking and 5 minutes of uploading and "tweaking". All the knowledge of the world is out there, just waiting for us to find the time to take advantage of it. How fun...

Actually aesthetics aside, this is a picture of the first of 2 sleeves that I had set myself to finish during the Olympics. I'm about 1/3 of the way through the second one, so I may even shoot past my mark. Would that be like a downhill racer who makes it across the finish line and keeps right on, barreling through the crowd? Or the short track speed skater who continues doing laps until they are dragged from the oval? Oh well, whatever gets me to the ultimate goal of finishing the sweater before the summer.

It's a sweater for my brother who will be 50 in September. He lives in Victoria and likes the outdoors. I love the brown/green mixture of blending the 2 yarns, and how it makes the cables almost a secret that you have to look for and follow to fully appreciate.

Speaking of the West Coast and the Olympics, is it just me or is the coverage a bit less exciting this time. On the other hand, have you ever heard O Canada with such force as it was sung at the ceremonies for Alex Bilodeau's gold medal?

My daughter had to tell me that this strange couple who do the interviewing in the morning on CTV (she looks like she just walked off a shoot for Vogue and he looks like he's trying to channel Roy Orbison) were actually meant to be funny. I just thought they were silly for real.

Well as I'm committed to a certain amount of television watching in order to complete (and perhaps exceed) my goal, I was channel surfing last night and came upon the coverage on APTN (Aboriginal Peoples' Television) and was delighted to hear that one of the Canadian men's hockey games this weekend will be broadcast in Cree. At 8pm they switched from English to French reporting and they said that they were thrilled to be presenting the women's curling between China and France (I think) and they were predicting a great match. It reminded me of the episode of the Mary Tyler Moore show (for those of you who remember it) when the newsroom hired a lovely young woman as a sports announcer who glossed over NFL scores and gave maximum story time to an up and coming young female diver.
That to me is what makes the remote control and satellite television such a bonus, you can find interesting coverage where you can hear hockey broadcast in Cree and see how China interprets Canada's second favourite sport: Curling.

For those who haven't made it in to the store for our SWEETHEART SALE, there are still a few days: Buy 4 balls of any of our regularly priced yarns and you get the 5th ball FREE. It's a great deal on whatever you want. Hope to see you before Saturday.

2.02.2010

SWEATER BOOT CAMP -


We're always looking for new classes and workshops to offer at the store. Alana and I have been working together with the regular Tuesday/Thursday on-going classes, and she was mentioning how she would love to offer a class where many of the questions that we answer each week get covered. Basic but extremely important questions like how to choose size and yarn weight, how to "pick up and knit", why there are different types of decreases and increases, etc.
So in the spirit of our insanely popular Sock-In-A-Day class (the next one of these is on March 12th by the way) we came up with the idea of a SWEATER BOOT CAMP - a 3 class/2 week course where participants would begin by planning their project, get the guidance needed to complete the 5 requisite pieces for the project cardigan (shown above), and come back 2 weeks later to learn about putting it all together.
Obviously there is only so much knitting that can be expected of a person in 2 weeks which is why the project chosen is this cute little baby jacket knit in bulky weight yarn. Seriously, the back can be knit in just a couple of hours.
The idea has been extremely popular so far and seems to be offering people a chance to build their confidence by challenging them to a simple/no frills design that serves as a basis for any future sweater knitting projects.
See the second last post for date and pricing details. Do consider this class for yourself or to recommend to a knitting friend who is ready to go beyond the hat and scarf; it should be lots of fun. And as after any BOOT CAMP experience, I'm sure there will be a few weary muscles and brain cells, but it will provide some great memories and a real sense of accomplishment.